AUTHOR OF THE CHILDREN OF THE ABBEY, &c. Thou hast been As one in suffering all, that suffers nothing; SHAKESPEARE. VOL. I. NEW YORK: PRINTED FOR AND SOLD BY PETER BURTSELL, T. KIRK, PRINTER, BROOKLYN. ........... THE DISCARDED SON. CHAP. I. "In struggling with misfortunes SHAKESPEARE. THAT the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; neither bread to the wise, nor yet riches to the men of understanding, nor favour to men of skill....all ages, all countries have furnished us with instances. Of these, Captain Munro perhaps was not the least striking; gifted by nature with all that was requisite to render him amiable....possessed of every advantage that education and fortune could bestow....born under the happiest auspices, and surrounded, on his outset in life, by friends affectionate and anxious in the extreme for his advancement in it, he had not advanced far in his career ere he found himself rapidly descending into the vale of adversity, and others as rapidly ascending to the summit of prosperity, who, from the early disadvantages under which they had laboured, he could not have supposed would have been able to have made a successful effort to approach it. Of these, the chances and changes of this mortal state, the little fortitude man would have to support himself beneath them, but for the strength and consolation derived A from religion, Captain Munro deeply pondered, as he journeyed from Glengary Castle, the residence of his father, towards his own. The day was so far advanced when he remounted his horse at the ancient gateway of the castle, for the last time, he was inclined to believe, as no consideration whatever should induce him again, he determined, to seek a reconciliation with his father so cruelly, so insultingly had his overtures for one been now rejected. Rain also fell in torrents, and the wind swept in hollow gusts over the heath, driving before it the withered burrs, and making the old trees, that scantily dotted the soil, groan beneath its fury. his But notwithstanding the resentment which glowed in breast....notwithstanding the violence of the tempest to which he was exposed, Captain Munro, on reaching the top of a hill that afforded a view of his native home, could not prevent himself from checking his horse, in order to indulge himself with another view of it....yes, indulge; for though it no longer afforded him a shelter, he could not forget the happy days in which it had done so ; and the remembrance of these made him feel something of that kind of pleasure in gazing on it, he would have done in contemplating the features of an old friend. The idea of his departed mother, the tenderest of parents, the most amiable of women, was associated with every view, with every recollection of it. He sighed as her memory now revived in his mind, and involuntary thought what she must suffer if departed spirits were allowed to review the transactions of this world, at the shameless scenes now passing in the mansion to which she had given consequence and estimation. "But heaven," exclaimed he, suddenly and aloud, with an outstretched arm and uplifted eyes, "heaven would not be heaven, were the cares, the inquietudes of this life to gain admission to it. No....all there is peace and joy; no tear is in the eye, no sorrow in the heart, to engender one. Happy state of rest; happy he, be his troubles what they may, whose conscience insures him such....Oh God!" he continued, with increasing fervour, let me never be deprived of this last consolation; |